This will be a big weekend of fighting hunger in North Texas. Food banks across our area want to make sure families will have plenty on the table to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday.
In the shadows of shiny buildings, hunger is a reality faced by many of our neighbors.
"We'll see people suffering in silence, and it's when they get to that last point of desperation, we'll see them come in for help," said Nicole Bursey, the executive director at Frisco Family Services.
Frisco Family Services stocks and operates the city's only community food pantry where families shop for free in a retail-like setting.
Others wait their turn at drive-thru food banks like the one at Fair Park on November 14 where the North Texas Food Bank handed out turkeys, nonperishables and produce to some 8,500 families.
The Dallas Morning News reports, before the pandemic, holiday giveaways would typically serve about 500 families.
"This line of cars that stretch to I-30, people need food," said Trisha Cunningham, the president and CEO of North Texas Food Bank as she watched car after car drive up with trunks open.
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The need and the lines keep stretching.
"It has been going on since march, and I do not see an end in the future until we can get a vaccine and get people back to work. This increase in need is going to continue," said Julie Butner, Tarrant Area Food Bank President and CEO.
So food bank staff, volunteers, donors and partners across North Texas keep going, too, especially now.
"To anyone who comes to our door, we feed them. And right now, we are in our busiest season of the year, thanksgiving," said Regena Taylor, the executive director of Community Food Bank in Fort Worth.
It's a holiday that even in a pandemic will still bring people together - those who need the help and those who can help.
One of them is Mitchell Ward, the CEO of MW Logistics, LLC. His company moves products around the country for companies such as Procter & Gamble, General Mills, Clorox and Coke. He rounded up volunteers and turkeys for the NTFB event and will do it again on Friday, November 20, for the Tarrant Area Food Bank mega mobile market at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.
"That just tugs at your heart, like my wife says, to see all these people in need. And we're able to have an effect on them and help them be successful," Ward said.
"The community comes together to prepare the boxes and turkeys we'll give out and then families can have a holiday meal," Bursey added.
Thousands of North Texas families will have their holiday meal because companies care; neighbors feel the need to help, and those who can answer the call for donations.
"The best way people can help us this holiday season is to go to ntbf.Org and make a contribution. Those contributions sustain us so that we can continue to feed our community," Cunningham said.
"Do what you know you can do, and it may be a financial contribution. It may be coming out to serve. Or, it may be simply bringing items to our food pantry. Whatever you can provide is so helpful to the families we're seeing come in now," Bursey said.
And the families continue to come will find food to nourish the body and soul.
"Everybody here has not just the spirit of thanksgiving. We have a spirit of giving. We enjoy helping families in need," Taylor said.
"To give them access to food and especially at the holidays, that's what keeps us going," Cunningham said.
Here are some of the events happening Friday, Nov 20:
Tarrant Area Food Bank
AT&T Stadium
1500 Kirkwood Dr., Arlington
8 a.m. - noon
Community Food Bank,
3000 Galvez Ave., Fort Worth
8 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Fort Worth Hope Center
3625 E Loop 820 South, Fort Worth
9 a.m. - 2p.m.
Catholic Charities
Dallas Executive Airport
5303 Challenger Dr., Dallas.
11 a.m. - 3 p.m.
Chris Howell Foundation
Senior Life Center
240 Veterans Memorial Pkwy., Lancaster
1 p.m. - 6 p.m.
